The Flash 5x22 : Legacy review

Be warned there will be *SPOILERS* involved in this review. With that being said let's get into it. 

The season finale of The Flash's fifth season has come and gone and with it we're show a lot of glimpses into the future, tearful goodbyes and even the return of The Flash's greatest enemy. The episode begins where last week's ended as Ralph screams out to The Flash to not shoot Cicada's dagger with the mirror gun. As we know Flash already fired off a shot but Ralph ends up getting in the way of the dagger which passes right through him. Ralph takes the shot and seems fine but seconds later his entire body morphs into something truly horrible. It honestly looks like an 8-bit version of himself. He right away is knocked out and back at Star Labs Caitlin says all his cells have somehow inverted themselves. Sherloque suggests that Cisco use his vibe power to give Ralph a good shakeup. Cisco agrees and hits Ralph with a jolt of energy, Ralph's body morphs and twists even more before eventually returning to normal, well except for his speech pattern which is messed up for the time being. At Star Labs still Nora wonders why Ralph interrupted the mirror gun's shot at the dagger. It is Sherloque who comes up with the answer as he finds all of Ralph's notes and says that he done so as to stop the dagger from behind destroyed in the present so in the future Eobard Thawne wouldn't be able to escape prison. At CCPD and while surveying the crime scene Barry and Nora find a piece of wood on the ground. It's odd because there is no wood inside the CCPD building. Everything is either made of glass or metal. They have the piece of wood tested back at Star Labs and trace it to Kolin's Woods. A deep wooded area where Cicada just so happens to be in hiding preparing for her next move. Nora comes up with a plan so that they can get rid of Cicada while not destroying the dagger so Reverse Flash wouldn't be able to escape in the future. At Cicada's cabin Nora enters young Grace's mind and tries her upmost to get her to take the meta-human cure. Back at Star Labs the rest of the team capture Cicada all be it a bit briefly, as time runs out Nora manages to convince the young grace to take the cure. But it's to no real affect as the dark matter shard in her head finds a way to counteract the cure. Cicada then shows up at her cabin again and really lays it into XS and The Flash. She holds Flash in place with her powers as she looks set to end XS. Flash uses the mirror gun again however this time hitting the dagger and destroying it in the process. The dagger vanishes into thin air soon after and then Cicada follows. A bit of an underwhelming exit for the big bad but I did like how Flash sacrificed the dagger being destroyed to save XS. 

At the very beginning of the episode we saw Eobard Thawne being loaded up to be taken away by the security guards. Bound to a gurney we seen the dagger which was being used to dampen his powers. But just as it is destroyed in the past it disappears in the future leaving Thawne to fully gain control of his powers once again. Flash and XS show up and Thawne reveals his plan. Back at the mid season finale when Barry and Nora went to the past to see Thawne in helping with constructing the weapon that they thought would stop Cicada, Nora blurted out the word Cicada in front of him. And Thawne says it is her word that made him realize the opportunity that presented itself. In a sense he used Nora's vulnerability to learn of Cicada and the dagger that stopped him from using his powers. He told Nora to go to the past to see her father and help him defeat Cicada thus helping Thawne in the future. It's a completely genius plan in my opinion and 100% something that Eobard Thawne would do to The Flash and everyone he loves. Thawne with full power now at his control shows up in the present day to confront The Flash and XS again. They get help from Team Flash who show up to the save day. Thawne sees Ralph and says he should be dead but it's still nice to meet him. A fast and furious battles ensues between The Flash, Reverse Flash and XS. Eobard even creates a duplicate of himself as one fights off Flash and the other XS. After a chaotic fast battle it resumes on the ground where Nora catches Eobard. She has him tight in her grip and it looks like she is about to kill him as her eyes glow red. Barry and Iris stop her but soon after something unexpected happens..as Nora begins to glow like Cicada did earlier. Thawne says that a new timeline is emerging. One where Cicada's dagger doesn't exist thus Nora is being wiped from existence. Barry and Eobard collide once more as Barry & Iris scramble for a way to save their daughter. Thawne says he Barry brings Nora to the negative speed-force he can save her. Inside and Nora says she can't hold on any longer. Barry urges her to continue but she runs away back to where the rest of the team are. Frantic with worry of losing her Iris screams at Barry to bring her back but Nora says no. The negative speedforce would slowly turn her into someone like Thawne. Someone that she is not. And she does not want that to be her legacy. The last thing we see of Nora in present day is her hugging Barry and Iris as she disappears into the bowels of existence. Truly a heart tugging scene once again as much like Arrow's season finale the second half of this episode was incredibly amazing. 

The episode comes to a close back at Star Labs where we see Cisco & Caitlin. Cisco who had previously listened intently to Thawne's evil villain monologue tells Caitlin that he doesn't want to be remembered just as Vibe, or just for his powers. He says it's time Cisco gets a chance to live life and kind of surprising to me he asks Caitlin to give him the meta-human cure. She does and now Cisco will no longer be Vibe or a part of this show going forward I presume. He will be sorely missed if that is to be the case both by me, the rest of the viewers and most importantly Team Flash. Sherloque Wells also bids adue to Team Flash after helping solve the greatest of mysteries. But the real implications here towards the future is the ending. As Barry and Iris are in the time vault they find a chip inside of Nora's journal. They place it into Gideon and a message from Nora plays. She says if you're both watching this then something bad must of happened. She says that she is thankful that she got to spend time with her parents and that helping people with her abilities is all she wanted to do. She is proud to be their daughter and ends the message with a tearful goodbye. The episode doesn't even end there however as one more thing is show before it cuts to black. And it is the most important thing of all. As inside the time vault again we see the 'Flash vanishes in crisis and is missing' headline. But something happens, Gideon says a timeflux has occurred and the time stamp of 2024 slowly rolls down to 2019!! so yes the Crisis On Infinite Earths is happening this year as we know and Barry is going to play a major role just like he does in the comics. 

So in summary season 5 of The Flash was definitely a step up from season 4 which was a bit of a jumbled mess. Season 5 started off incredibly strong with the first handful of episodes being great. Then it kind of declined after the mid season break only to get strong again as it entered it's final states. The inclusion of Nora West-Allen who was played by Jessica Parker Kennedy was a true highlight of the season. Her character arc was entirely believable and something I will remember fondly. Barry and Iris weren't fighting as much which was much needed after a rocky season 4 and the Reverse Flash's end game plan was sublime. The only thing I didn't really like was Cicada (both versions) as the character felt so angry just for the sake of being so. It was a threat but when compared to Reverse Flash, Zoom, Savitar and even The Thinker! Cicada ranks the lowest of the big bads in my opinion. But overall season 5 I did really enjoy for the most part which now leaves me with only 2 words. Season 6. Thank you Team Flash for a wild and crazy 22 episodes. 

★★★★

Season overall :

★★★★